A compilation of daily news articles from around the United States about deaths (including both people and animals) that appear to occur in the context of a past or present intimate relationship, focusing on 2009-present. (NOTE: this blog is limited to incidents that appear in the media and are captured by our search terms. We recognize this is not an exhaustive portrayal of all deaths resulting from intimate violence.)
When is society going to realize intimate violence makes victims of us all?

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Family members of a Salt Lake City couple found dead in an apparent murder-suicide on Interstate 80 say the couple appeared happy and had never hinted there was any trouble in their relationship.

Utah Highway Patrol troopers found Felipe
Rodriguez, 37, and his wife, Iris, 32, dead from apparent gunshot wounds
to their heads inside an SUV at about 9:30 a.m. Friday. A citizen who
saw the SUV leave the highway initially reported a possible crash to
police.

"We don’t know how this happened. We have a lot
of questions," Iris Rodriguez’s aunt Anna Barahona said Friday evening.
"We don’t have any information and what police said was very brief."

Felipe and Iris Rodriguez had been married 14
years and leave behind a 13-year-old daughter, Samantha, Barahona said.
The couple’s daughter was at school at the time of the shootings, she
said.

Family members were gathered at the home of
Iris Rodriguez’s parents in Salt Lake City trying to make sense of what
had happened, Barahona said. The couple had dinner on Thursday with
family and did not appear to be having problems, nor was family aware of
any unusual financial pressures, she said.

"Iris was a very happy person, very loving,
very caring," said Barahona. "Felipe we know as her husband, and he was
also always very happy. He didn’t seem to me like he would do something
like this."

Police have provided few details about the shooting. and a motive for the incident remained unclear Friday night.

UHP Cpl. Todd Johnson said troopers found the
SUV off the side of the highway underneath an intersecting Interstate
215 overpass, not far from Salt Lake City International Airport.

"There are two dead adults, the female driver and a
male passenger. Both appear to have gunshot wounds to the head, so we’re
looking at this as a possible murder-suicide," Johnson said Friday morning.

Johnson said there was no crash involved, as had been reported earlier.